2026 Theses Master's

Rezoning and Multidimensional Displacement in New York City: A Comparative Study of Inwood, and Jerome Avenue

Castro-Pozo, Jimena Ñiquen

This thesis examines how neighborhood rezonings shape uneven trajectories of urban transformation in New York City through a comparative analysis of the 2018 Inwood and Jerome Avenue rezonings, two major land-use interventions implemented under the de Blasio administration as part of the Housing New York strategy. Although both rezonings were institutionally framed as tools to increase residential density in underutilized areas with limited anticipated displacement risk, and both relied on similar regulatory mechanisms such as Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, they produced markedly different outcomes.

Drawing on critical scholarship on rezoning, gentrification, and displacement, this research analyzes the physical, social, and symbolic dimensions of neighborhood change through spatial analysis, field observations, and semi-structured interviews with planners, community advocates, and residents. The comparison shows that Inwood experienced a faster materialization of rezoning-enabled development, commercial restructuring, and amenity-driven in-migration, while transformation along the Jerome Avenue corridor remained slower, spatially uneven, and shaped by the persistence of automotive land uses and migration replacement within Latino communities.

By examining these divergent trajectories, this thesis argues that rezoning outcomes cannot be understood solely through zoning regulations, housing production targets, or demographic change. Instead, institutional leadership, amenity infrastructure, spatial configuration, and territorial stigma shaped the symbolic valuation of each neighborhood and influenced the temporalities through which redevelopment and displacement pressures unfolded.

More broadly, this project proposes a multidimensional and temporally sensitive framework for evaluating rezoning impacts, emphasizing that planning assessments must account not only for land-use change and housing production, but also for the symbolic processes through which neighborhood desirability is unevenly produced across urban space.